Happy 4/20! ScHoolboy Q Talks His First Time Smoking Weed, Quitting Sizzurp and Being High Every Day

Music

Schoolboy Q wants to make one thing clear: “I’m not a weed rapper,” he told VIBE while in New York City, but weed isn’t exactly foreign territory to Q, either. The “Bet I Got Some Weed” rapper has been catching a lot of traction lately in the hip-hop sphere for his smooth flow, suggestive lyrics, and the “I don’t give a fuck” persona.

While hip-hop has only been in his diet since he started rapping at 21, the Cali native has been practicing and refining the art of puffing and passing for quite some time. In honor of 4/20, the stoner’s holiday, VIBE sat down with the West Coast rapper to talk about the lows, the highs, and the very highs of his experiences. —Tanya Chen

VIBE: Weed. It’s a heavy influence to say the least in your music, but is it like a hobby or has it become more a lifestyle?

ScHoolboy Q: First, I’m addicted. We’re going to start off with that, first of all, so that’s going to keep me going back regardless. I smoke backwoods, a natural tobacco leaf, but being high is the shit! Who don’t want to be high? Like you don’t give a fuck when you’re high. You just being that bitch like “whatever, I’m shady.” You don’t want to fight, you don’t want to break up nobody, you don’t want to start no fight, you just want to chill. Do what you gotta do.

Is there a time when being stone cold sober is better? Is there ever an instance or thing in your life that being—

Q: First experience was different ‘cause I smoked before but I didn’t get high. I stole some of my mama’s weed, and before I went to school, I was in the 10th grade, I put it in the zig zag. I smoked it but I really wasn’t high. I was scared to inhale it. I was just inhaling it and not letting it hit my lungs. When I was in 11th grade, I was with the homie Traffic, one of my closest homies, we were in the backyard smoking. I was like “let me hit it” and he was like alright. He let me hit it and um, I threw up.

You threw up?

Yeah. ‘Cause I hit it and I did it like he told me and he was like “naw n*gga, you got to hit it like this” and he tried to show me. I did it and threw up. And I was FADED. That one hit, FADED. I didn’t like start off with stress. I started with stress after I smoked five kush blunts a day. I was like this shit too strong, n*gga be dizzy. First time getting high I was so dizzy and shit, like this shit ain’t cool. I was high for like 10 hours, like what the fuck.

What about other drugs? I know you dropped Oxy references in your lyrics. Are there other drugs in your diet?

Yeah, I just quit lean like a week ago, that’s why my stomach hurt now and shit. I felt like I was about to die. Shit wasn’t cool, you just feel like somebody grabbing my stomach. But I never took oxy, I sold oxy. I don’t really take Ecstasy pills, I took them before but that’s not something I do, I just rap about it and shit. Never tried coke. All I ever did was just weed and lean. Oh and some shrooms.

What was your worst experience getting high besides that first time?

Paranoid driving home. Third time I got high I was driving home and I was on the freeway and the street signs and shit on the freeway with the exits on it looked so far. I was like damn. I’m driving like 40 on the freeway in 65, and then shit seemed so far and then the shit be like close out of nowhere. That shit was crazy, I was just paranoid. The lights were dark, I’m thinking it’s the police every time somebody touches the break light. That was the worst.

What’s a song that that you listen to maybe when you’re high and it really does something for you?

I’m always high, so I don’t have one.

How will you be celebrating 4/20 this year?

Me, Wiz, A$AP Rocky, Chevy Woods, we got a show. Another cat named Burner, we got a show in San Francisco. We’re gonna smoke that bitch out. I’m going to have to bring the backwoods through, I know Wiz is going to bring papers and shit. I can’t do that, I got to smoke the backwoods.